


~ A Fire in the Night ~

by Spiced_Wine



Series: Splinters of Steel [2]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dark Prince ‘verse, Grief, M/M, Madness, Magnificat of the Damned ‘verse, Passion, Pro-Fëanorion, Rage, in ‘verse context
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:33:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24899236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spiced_Wine/pseuds/Spiced_Wine
Summary: When Tindómion vanishes after leading Gil-galad’s army back to Lindon, Glorfindel searches for him.
Relationships: Glorfindel/Tindómion (OMC)
Series: Splinters of Steel [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1778620
Comments: 14
Kudos: 17





	~ A Fire in the Night ~

  
  


**~ Fire in the Night ~**

~ So many dead...  
Sorrow lay over the land heavy as the fumes of ash that had vented from Orodruin during the siege. The war was long over — no, Glorfindel corrected, it was an intermission, not an ending — but it seemed as if a last glance of Sauron’s malice had sent the winds of the world to carry the ash West, over Lindon. It had settled like grey snow over the green land.

_So many dead, and a full harvest of kings...._

Lindon was a shattered realm, its King gone down into ruin and blood, like all the ill-fated Kings of the Noldor. There would be no other. There had been some whispers of successors. Glorfindel himself had been approached by those of Gil-galad’s advisors who survived, but they had been outnumbered by the Queen-Mother’s faction who declared that her son (in his wickedness) had ended the line of Noldorin kings himself. Had he but married and sired children...but he had not. And Rosriel’s eyes had flicked, lizard-like to Glorfindel who smelt, as he had before, that scent of old, rotted ice. And now he knew why that smell was familiar, although then, not so strong. He had, in Valinor, associated it with the odour of Varda. A cold decay.  
‘And who would want this disowned son of Finarfin?’ her closet adherent, Borniven  
had cried (but keeping well back and using Rosriel as a shield). Glorfindel regarded him with contempt.  
‘I would not take the crown,’ he returned levelly. ‘There will be no more Kings of the Noldor until the dead return.’

Glorfindel passed great, deserted mansions, farmland gone wild, quarries unworked, roads empty. The ash of Orodruin furred their verges like frost. Many of the people had gone to the shores to take ship, or to swell Círdan’s folk at the havens. Others, the more rebellious perhaps, turned to Imladris.

But not the one Glorfindel sought. Tindómion had performed his last duty to his king, leading what was left of the army back to Lindon, then vanished like a soul wraith-haunted. Glorfindel thought he had gone to Fanari’s house, but it was a message from Fanari that brought him into Lindon. Tindómion had indeed visited his mother, and then ridden away, alone.

‘Find him,’ Elrond had said. ‘Bring him back with Fanari. He may have no use for me, after what happened, but he is needed. I would have him serve under you as Lieutenant of Imladris.’

‘So would I,’ Glorfindel agreed. ‘And so I will.’

Fanari’s home, where Tindómion had grown up, overlooked the great Firth of Llûn, whose waters glinted a dark northern blue under the sun. A staggered line of five ships were taking advantage of the offshore wind gusting steadily from the East. They would sail down to the Grey Gates, where the firth opened to Belegaer and point their prows toward the setting sun. A great sadness descended on Glorfindel as he watched. What was there for them in Valinor but endless, white-on-white days of nothingness? If they were fortunate, they might be reunited with those who had died. Only if the Valar judged them worthy of rebirth, if the dead had not sinned. He turned away.

A servant came to take his stallion as Fanari appeared at her door, carrying two goblets. She lead him into the garden and they sat in the scent of sun warmed grass and lavender and thyme. He took a drink of the cold, sparkling cyser.  
‘Thou hast heard nothing?’ he asked, although she would have told him, he knew, mind-to-mind, just as she had called him to help. She shook her head, eyes on the sea.  
‘I think he was holding himself together like a vase that has been smashed but not yet fallen into pieces,’ she said. ‘But when he arrived here it struck him afresh that...that Gil-galad was gone. He went out into the night.’

‘I will find him,’ he promised her. She nodded.  
‘She has gone.’ A tilt of her chin indicated the sea. ‘The Queen Mother. On that first ship.’

‘I have no doubt she will be happy, where she goes,’ he said dryly. ‘And what of thyself? Wilt thou come back to Imladris? Elrond would be glad to have thee, and Tindómion also.’

‘I will come, if my son does,’ she said. ‘I am so tired of watching the sea, half-hoping — expecting — something good to come from there. Glorfindel!’ She swung to face him. ‘I do not wish history to repeat itself, that he become mad and lost like his father!’

Glorfindel laid a hand on hers. ‘I seriously doubt, Fanari, that Maglor is mad now,’ he said with perfect conviction. ‘He was, I am sure, for a time; an excess of grief and love, but he would never have survived had he been crazed and out of his senses. If he is lost now, it is because he wishes to be. And we know he was in Barad-dûr and survived that.’

She turned to stare at him. ‘Istelion’s dream...’

‘Was a true one,’ he said grimly. ‘In Mordor, we captured someone who knew of it. But Maglor escaped, according to him. No mad man, no wreck of a human being, would have been able to do such a thing.’

She swallowed, no doubt imagining what might have happened to Maglor in that place. Her eyes lowered and a shiver chased over her. She had loved Maglor and although she had accepted he would never reciprocate, still she was fond of him and a champion of his house. One of the few. Glorfindel gripped her shoulder strongly.  
‘He lives, Fanari. He lives.’

‘If they could only meet,’ she said with all the weariness of a long held wish that had never manifested. ‘If he knew he had a son...Oh, do not talk to me of Tindómion’s vow! I would wager my very life that if they met, Tindómion would not harm him. He is Fëanorion to the bone. Even had I not raised him as one, his blood would tell.’

‘It has already told, a thousand times,’ Glorfindel said. ‘And yes, that is a question. I wonder that Maglor does not feel his son, but perhaps the memory of his begetting is so monstrous to him that he has forced his mind to forget it.’

Fanari’s profile was very still, her brows drawn.  
‘He _was_ mad then,’ she said slowly but without a tremor in her voice. ‘Yes, perhaps his mind would force that knowledge away. He was not _himself_. War can do that.’ She had seen it, of course, in Gondolin, at Sirion, and Glorfindel thought of how he himself fought in battle. No mercy there, and little thought: instinct only. The desire to kill and kill again. It felt, at its height, like riding on a wave of fire. It was, in fact, not unlike sex.  
‘Yes,’ he said.

She never spoke of the rape. The fact that she lived and did not fade toward death like a winter rose had caused the Queen Mother and her adherents to eye her askance, to say it could not have been rape at all. Glorfindel had been incensed by this though Fanari simply shrugged it off. Maedhros had not died of rape and torment and for the same reason: he _would not_. He had held to love. Fanari had held to the spirit of her unborn child, but not that alone. She had seen Gondolin’s fall, watched the Havens of Sirion burn. She was not of the metal to shatter.

A cloud drifted across the face of the sun, turned the firth’s waters to steel. He thought of that thrall in Mordor, his words: _We will fight the gods because there is no other way._

Even now, even here, watching Gil-galad’s kingdom crumble, Glorfindel refused to give up, to join those who thought their lives in Middle-earth were over, and there was nothing for them but the West. Though Aman-born himself, Glorfindel would not accept that fatalism. _The Quendi opened their eyes to the stars of Middle-earth, not Valinor. The Valar wanted us in Aman to control us._  
And nothing had changed. So yes, _We will fight the gods in the end, and no doubt die, our souls cast out. So be it. We shall be in good company._

Tindómion had not surrendered will, but he had surrendered _hope_ , Glorfindel thought. He would fight to the bitterest end believing none of it mattered, because he _knew_ where it would end. He _knew_ that Gil-galad’s soul was in the Void. So, yes, they would fight because they had no other choice.

But they had no king. The Silvans believed that the King was bound to the land, wedded to it, the father-bride to the Earth-mother. _What will we become now we have no king? Scattered survivors in hidden valleys and beside the shores of the sea..._

One bears the unbearable. Glorfindel’s parents might live but they had cast him off. The others, most of them, dying (blazing) had been reeled in by Mandos as they died, cast into Night. He had known but perhaps had not quite believed it; the Valar were quite capable of lying. And then, in Mordor, he had witnessed the proclamation of Doom. Only a few of them, the thrall among them, had heard the pitiless knell of the words.

But the Valar professed to care about their _chosen_ , the enlightened, the ones who had committed no sin; they deserved clemency, protection (The Valar had never protected anyone). Glorfindel was to be their hope, to show the lingerers on Endor that the Powers were merciful for see! here was one who had died bur now lived, and so their own dead would be there, in Aman, waiting for them. So come home!

Glorfindel wondered how many of those who returned would come to the shocking realisation that the dead were not washed shining-clean, and perhaps were not returning at all. If they were reborn, still they did not _forget_. Born into new bodies, they retained all their memories of their old lives. Still, he startled awake from living dreams: the Darkening, Alqualondë, the brutal cold of Helcaraxë, the first sightings of Morgoth’s foul creatures, the first battle when it seemed there was hope, that there would be victory — then Nirnaeth Arnoediad ending in slaughter and horror, Gondolin’s fall; his own fall, blind and burning, from Cristhorn.  
The War of the Alliance would be added to his dreams. If he himself was any indication, the reborn would live with their past and its horrors like any survivor of a terrible war. It was a form of living, but it was not a gift; it was not _grace_. Only if all the dead were rehoused and the past lain between them with all its pain could there be any bridge to true healing. And Mandos barred the way. And so, living-unliving, the reborn would simply move and speak as day followed day in a Valinor that reminded Glorfindel of the colour of spilled milk left to sour, and so they would exist (not live) for eternity.

Eternity — no not that long. For, as the Valar told it, even in Aman, the Elves would, eventually fade, become no more than houseless _feä_ drifting mournfully on the winds. To die fighting the gods and fate seemed the lesser evil.

Fanari said, ‘He told me. He told what happened.’ She turned and her eyes burned under the tears. ‘And they had _so little_.’ A sob caught in her throat. ‘I do not _know_ , I never asked, but it is true, is it not? My son took the warnings — the threats — to heart: he would not doom the man he loved. And it _devoured_ him.’ She put her head in her hands suddenly.

‘Yes,’ Glorfindel said through the tight rage that closed his own throat. ‘It was so very little. And for that starvation-existence Gil-galad was condemned.’

Fanari rose in a flurry of red skirts, paced to the end of the garden. ‘Then _damn them_!’ she raged. ‘May Eru crush their souls to dust!’

Perhaps he would, though thus far he had done nothing. Let the credulous talk of Eru destroying Númenor. It had been the Valar, enraged that any dared challenge their might.

Eru, Glorfindel’s pondered. The incalculable; the unknowable who, if he cared at all for his children, did not evince such emotion.

Fanari said, ‘What do we do?’ And everything was in that question.

‘We resist, and we fight,’ Glorfindel told her. ‘There is naught else we can do.’

She look a breath. ‘Yes. At least we can do that.’ And she smiled, but a shadow lay over it. ‘I tried to find him,’ she said. ‘But I think that now, he needs someone who was there.’

‘Yes,’ he said gently. ‘I will find him.’

‘I cannot reach him, Glorfindel, not in this.’

That strange thrall had, in Mordor, at least for a while. He had known exactly what to say, and his absolute certainty had sparked something in Tindómion and Glorfindel too, at a time when, despite the victory, hope had blown away in the grey ash of the Gorgoroth.

‘He would not go to the palace,’ Fanari said. ‘I went, to look for him. Rosriel was stripping it bare, taking everything with her, every hanging, rug, piece of furniture, every ornament. Everything.’

‘Thou didn’t speak to her, then?’ he asked, surprised.

She gave a short, humourless laugh. ‘ _She_ spoke to _me_. But anyhow, Tindómion was not there.’

‘I used to think it was strange that Rosriel’s parents followed Fingolfin across the Ice.’ Glorfindel stared at the ships, further away each moment. ‘They were such devoted followers of the Valar.’

‘I never knew them, Glorfindel, but I am not surprised. I think she would have built a temple to Elbereth if she had been permitted. She did have a votive statue of her in her chambers. Why did they come, then? And why of all things marry her to Fingon?’

‘I think they were commanded to come,’ Glorfindel said. ‘Perhaps to keep the worship alive. Well, I think there are few Valar worshippers now, this side of the sea. And not all her household have followed her.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Erestor has gone to Imladris, I know. He came here, first.’

‘Did he? Why?’

Her lips quirked wryly. ‘I think he wanted to apologise, but to Tindómion rather than me. However, he _did_ apologise. He said the news of the High King’s death had made him see things much more clearly. It is a great shame Rosriel got her claws into him when he was so young.’

‘Yes. He could not help his parentage. Salgant was a fawning coward who regretted his decision to come to Endor almost as soon as he set foot in it and fell over himself to go to Gondolin because he thought a hidden city would be _safe._ ’ His mouth curled in contempt. ‘The only thing I can say about him was that he was no devotee of the Valar; he was all for himself. And although he rode out to the Tears, it was _most_ unwillingly, and he hid behind his men. If _he_ had betrayed Gondolin I would not have been surprised. Maeglin at the least was no coward.’ His teeth snapped shut.

Fanari said, her eyes far away, ‘No, he was not.’ And then shaking her shoulders as if to shake away the past: ‘Erestor looks much like his mother, and I liked her a great deal. I could never understand that marriage. But it was arranged in Valinor, she told me, like so many marriages were. I think in Imladris, Erestor will become what he should always have been.’

‘Yes, he is already much changed,’ Glorfindel agreed. ‘But perhaps it was fortuitous that Istelion was not here when he came.’

‘It was.’

He finished his drink. ‘Well, if I may trouble thee for some few provisions, Fanari, to ride faster and without stopping to hunt, I shall go.’

They turned back to the house and she slipped a hand through his arm gratefully. ‘I hoped thou wouldst say that, so I have the cook packing thy saddlebags.’ She drew away a little to look up at him. ‘And what of thee, my friend?’

‘What of me?’ he asked, a little amused.

‘Thou art not meant for an empty life any more than my son is, than Gil-galad was,’ she said seriously. ‘I remember — and miss — Ecthelion every day. He was so courageous and beautiful; thou wert well-matched. But he was not the only one was he? I do not believe we are meant for that. How canst thou bear to be alone?’

He smiled, but thought: _Ah, Fanari, I was touched by fire, and there is no remedy for it. One seeks it until the world’s end, and perhaps beyond._ And then there was that dark, dark fire in Mordor, the cold passion of it, the unselfishness, the erotic and shameless blaze. The power...

_Twice touched by fire, and I will never accept less._

What made them different, those who refused to conform to the Valar’s narrow path; was it that they were all, in some way, influenced by Fëanor or that bloodline? The fire burned from one to the other and ignited; even the blown sparks fell where they would and touched into a flame the Valar had never been able to stamp out. It was not simply passion, but a desire to be _free_.

Nothing in Valinor (save Fëanor) had thrilled Glorfindel as had living in a world where there was danger and war. Gondolin had stifled him, but in the end; only duty and loyalty had bound him to Turgon, not love. And in the end, there had been war enough....  
  
War enough. And death.  
  
Fanari lead him into the bedchamber Tindómion had used when he visited her, the one that had been his from childhood. On a stand was his armour; the superb fish-scale mail under bands of metal, the great plumed helm, shone freshly burnished. Celebrimbor had made it, as he had made _Gurthdur_ , Tindómion’s sword, and its workmanship was exquisite. Would they ever see such again, Glorfindel wondered with that old ache under his ribs. At least the sword had not been left behind.  
  
The harness stood beside a great harp. How many times had Glorfindel listened to Tindómion playing that? It had been his first sight of the Fëanorion. Those evenings when the Great Hall quietened and Tindómion set his fingers to the gleaming strings, Glorfindel could close his eyes and remember Maglor’s peerless voice, the music that seemed to be part of something greater than himself — _an echo of the Great Song_. It was _fire_ , it was life, in all its bitter and beautiful glory.  
  
Then he saw that some of the strings were broken, curled back, ugly gouges cut in the gleaming harpwood. _Orc work_ , he thought disgustedly: Borniven or perhaps Rosriel herself. And ugliness of mind that reflected the twisted Powers they clung to and still served.  
  
‘Yes,’ Fanari said hardly. ‘I brought his things back from the palace. I think they would have used that for kindling, had I not arrived. There is a master luthier in the lower town who has said he will repair it.’  
  
‘Yes, it must be repaired,’ Glorfindel said slowly. ‘What did Tindómion say when he saw it?’  
  
‘Nothing. Only he _looked_.’  
  
‘Have it done, Fanari. He will play it again.’  
  
  
  


OooOooO

Glorfindel found Tindómion eight days later.

He had headed inland, remembering days of hunting with Gil-galad and Tindómion and the king’s knight-companions. He mistrusted nostalgia and indeed did not feel it, only the sadness that something so shining was gone down into shadow. _Again and again and again_.

The moon hung gibbous and mellow, lighting the tower of Elostirion to silver white. Reining in, Glorfindel saw a horse cropping the grass. It raised its head, nickering softly. Relief nudged into his bones as he recognised Tindómion’s stallion.

The great base of the tower was empty. Glorfindel trod up the spiralling steps to the chamber forty ells above the hill. He became aware of a soft current of air stirring his hair; one of the windows had been pushed open.

The great plinth that housed the _Palantir_ dominated the room, its covering cast aside. Spilling moonlight moved uneasily over the smooth, dark surface and another shard of grief burrowed deeper as Glorfindel imagined Fëanor’s hands working this stone. A name of hate now, of madness and betrayal; almost a curse on the tongue, yet his brilliance had been without equal. The madness had come at the end; Glorfindel had seen the seeds of it in Araman’s cold mists. But ah, that _fire_ , the passion. Fëanor had walked through Tirion like a firestorm, more feral and more potentially dangerous than any Power. He walked as if he ruled the world, were its god, its king. He winked at the Valarin Laws, all but laughed in their faces. The Valar had seen it, been afraid of it and ensured Fëanor was crushed. Glorfindel wondered if they, in fact, as well as Morgoth, had rootled into that superlative mind like pigs at a trough, tearing away sanity. He would put nothing past them.

Glorfindel had never been able to come to terms with his feelings toward Fëanor for they had been brutally unresolved and remained so. Yet — how had his sons ever found the strength of will to continue after his death? _How did Fingolfin_? his mind whispered. Grief rose into a heady anger at the Doom, at the Valar. He ran his fingers over the _Palantir’s_ surface. Tiny glints of light swirled.

Tindómion stood at one of the windows, so still that Glorfindel wondered for a moment if he had not heard. But then he turned, and the dimness shaded that bronze hair into jet, and the face was Fëanor’s with the same wildness that had presaged his madness eating at the silver eyes which glowed in the semi-dark. It was said that the Aman-born alone held the so-called ‘Tree Light’ in their eyes; another myth. That light was of the soul, and the brightest burned with it, perilous and fey. So close on the heels of his thoughts of Fëanor was this seeming vision, that Glorfindel’s heart stammered in his breast.

‘We were told this looked only West.’ There was a strange quality to Tindómion’s voice that troubled Glorfindel.

‘This? The Palantir? And so it does.’ He stopped. ‘Istelion, what hast thou done?’

Tindómion moved from the window. His stride was that of a starving wolf and his dress was simple, as might be worn for a morning ride. His storm-flood of hair was loose, wild waves. He smelt of incense lit and left to burn without the flame being blown out, and the dry-grass scent of midsummer, as if he had lain down in some uncut meadow to sleep. His hair carried the freshwater odour of the clear, rocky streams of the Ered Luin.

A sound nothing like a laugh — something raw and abrasive as rust — came from Tindómion’s throat. ‘Why should it look West? What hope is there in Valinor, what mercy?’ His eyes burned like molten lead. ‘I thought to taking ship, of going before the thrones of the _damnéd_ Valar and —‘

‘They would have killed thee,’ Glorfindel let the wine skin and pack drop.

‘I wanted thee to kill me,’ Tindómion lashed. ‘To bury me in his grave. Perhaps I could guard him in the Void as I could not in this life!’

‘I will not lose thee, too,’ Glorfindel cried. ‘Thou art _kin_.’ He drew a cup from his pack, splashed wine into it and tendered it to Tindómion who, after a moment, took it, drained it to the dregs. Glorfindel poured another and drank it himself. He went to the wall bracket and uncovered the lamp. Celebrimbor had been able to recreate his grandfather’s work in Eregion, insisting that the lights still be named _Fëanorion_ , lamps, and Gil-galad had placed one lamp in each of the towers. Other, more traditional lanterns lay dark with tapers and oil nearby.

The moonlight faded, throwing Tindómion’s face into sharp relief, white as the tower, harder than its stone. But his eyes...Glorfindel took one step forward and caught his shoulders.  
‘Come back to us, Istelion!’ The muscles were unyielding under his fingers, the eyes unblinking.  
‘Why? I have done my duty.’  
  
‘Because this is not yet _done_!’  
  
‘Do not say that to me! No, for I will not permit it to be _done_! But what do we do against gods, Glorfindel? Even my grandsire could not defeat Morgoth, nor all the forces of the Elder Days! Fingolfin could not kill him!’ He tore away, paced to the Palantir. ‘I would not have this look West and so I bent it to my will.’ His conversational tone chilled Glorfindel. _How_? he thought, but then looking at Tindómion was struck afresh who he was, _what_ he was, and in this mood...  
‘What does it show, now, Istelion?’  
  
The silver eyes came up. ‘Whatever thou wouldst have it see. Anything, anywhere, save Valinor. The past, the present...’  
  
Glorfindel looked at the stone. The silver and gold sparkles intensified like a sweep of moving stars in some far-away heaven, then faded into—  
  
_— Hot land, hardpan desert, blown sand twisting like serpents’ tails; a city rising out of a cradle of oasis, deep green against the tawny spread of the water-bleached land. Copper-sheathed domes, streets circling the high point of a palace. A throng of people, robed and veiled against the sun. A shaded chamber, a throne, a man seated negligently upon it, black clad, a horsetail of hair sweeping over one shoulder, violet eyes backlit like burning gems. One black-booted leg slung over the other, hands on the arms of the throne. The pose said everything. Rulership fitted him as lightly as watered silk, but this was what he was born for._  
  
_They call him the Dark Prince._  
  
_A scatter of starlight...the towers of Tirion rising, blanched and pallid, and a wall of fire...and pain...Pain. A man kneeling on the sand, jet hair streaming to the sand over naked shoulders and then slowly, slowly raising his head, diamond-silver eyes catching triumphant fire as —  
  
Fëanor raised his head._   
  
Glorfindel took as step back, breath suddenly hot in his throat, but the glimmering mists took the visions away and left him with a heart beating hard and a more visceral leap of what...? _Hope_? But...something from the past?  
‘Nothing is ended,’ he heard himself saying , and then, louder: ‘ _Nothing is ended, Tindómion_! Did not Sauron’s slave say it?’ (Slave, his inner voice mocked, really?) ‘I know, I know, it would be easy to dismiss those as the words of a madman, but they were the words of someone who, like us, _has no other choice_! We _must fight._ ’  
  
‘Oh, I will _fight_ ,’ Tindómion snarled back. ‘Fade or go into the Void, what choice is there?’ Then his long, harpist’s fingers caressed the _Palantir’s_ stone, and the tiny lights swirled again. He had not seen the vision, Glorfindel realised. But what _had_ he seen?  
‘Thou wert searching for the past,’ he stated, understanding. ‘Gil-galad.’  
  
The very word caused Tindómion to flinch and then stiffen. ‘I destroyed him,’ he said flatly. ‘I should have been at his side. I always had been—‘  
  
‘Only an unblooded tyro believes war is that simple,’ Glorfindel interrupted roughly. ‘And thou knowest as well as I that it is often chaotic.’ And yet, the High King had run toward Sauron as if eager. Perhaps he had been, as mad and resolved as Fingolfin must have been riding out alone to challenge Morgoth.  
  
Tindómion continued as if he had not heard. ‘I damned him.’  
  
‘The Valar damned him!’ Glorfindel flashed. ‘Just as they damned all the others. Thou wert there!’  
  
‘I should have walked away — at the least have controlled myself —‘  
  
‘And he? Did he have no choice either? _Listen to me!_ ‘ And when Tindómion pivoted on the balls of his feet and turned away, Glorfindel rounded the plinth and caught him. ‘Listen to me! I want thee to come back to Imladris. This is not over. Sauron will return. I need thee by my side, my right arm, my lieutenant—‘  
  
‘I will not serve Elrond,’ Tindómion hissed. ‘Hells! He was my _friend_ , and yet proved him too weak at the last.’  
  
‘I do not ask thee to. I ask thee to walk at _my_ side. To fight at _my_ side.’ Guilt came up in a rush. ‘Ah, hells, I should have warned thee. All I could do was hold myself aloof—‘  
  
‘Thou didn’t warn us. We did not want to be warned. Ah, so thou wouldst lead by example?’ Tindómion laughed, the sound shockingly bleak, ravaged as fields sewn with salt. ‘What a waste. I damned him from the first moment we lay together, just that one time. I would have flayed the skin from my body to save him, gone into the Dark _for_ him, but one cannot make bargains with gods, can one?’  
  
‘Not with these, no. And so we _fight_.’  
  
‘For how long, for how many Ages, while those we love are lost in the jaws of the Void?’  
  
‘As long as we have to! As long as we must. And yes, perhaps we too will go into the Dark, but even there, we will _fight._ We keep the fire _alive_.’ He caught Tindómion behind the neck, dragged his head forward and kissed him. The fiery, lovely mouth, so like Fëanor’s, and it had been so long, so long.  
  
They kissed like warriors, without tenderness, without softness, neither sparing the other as they stripped their gear. A container of oil smashed, and that was all the the consideration Glorfindel wanted or needed from Tindómion, remembering Fëanor’s ungentle possession that burned through pain, through the world itself until there could be nothing but the feel of him, of the fire. Always he had seen that flame in Tindómion and now he wanted it, a memory, a hope...  
  
It was nothing like love; it was savage, it was despairing, it was furious, defiant. It was grief immeasurable, a gauntlet tossed down at the feet of the Valar, claiming incandescent pleasure from the jaws of sorrow. Tindómion’s hair spilled over him in shimmering waves, his slim hips slamming as he drove himself deeper, and Glorfindel cried him on, all control lost, and gladly. The terrible striving, the pleasure rising like a tide until the world was nothing but them, the feel of Tindómion within him, his own iron-hard erection between his legs. Brutal and beautiful as a song of fire, it carried them from pain into an explosion that reached far beyond any name for pleasure or bliss. It was an agony of convulsion that drained them both to the marrow.  
  
‘I will come with thee,’ Tindómion said, after, as he lay back. The lamp slid over the marble smoothness of his body, drowned in his hair. ‘For thee, and for those who may come after.’ He reached out a hand, and Glorfindel clasped it. A warrior’s pact.  
  
  
  
  
  


OooOooO

**Author's Note:**

> Elostirion was the tallest and westernmost of the three White Towers that stood on the Tower Hills and that had been built by Gil-galad for Elendil. It held one of the palantír of Arnor which did not communicate with the rest but looked only westward across the Sundering Seas to Tol Eressëa. It was the last stone of Arnor until it was removed at the very end of the Third Age.
> 
> From Tolkien Gateway 
> 
> I have hinted that Glorfindel and Tindómion occasionally enjoyed a ‘warrior’s’ intimacy.


End file.
